Probability in Rational Decision-Making

Moser, Paul K.; Mulder, Dwayne H.

doi:10.1080/05568649409506416

Cited by 6 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 8 publications

(2 reference statements)

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“…5W, 4L 12 Moser and Mulder (1994) similarly argue that the Switching Argument works perfectly well for a large enough series of games but less and less well for smaller and smaller series of games and (therefore) not at all for a single game. Horgan (1995, pp.…”

Section: Situation a Chooses B Chooses Monty Hall Opens Doormentioning

confidence: 88%

Baumann on the Monty Hall problem and single-case probabilities

Levy¹

2006

Synthese

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Peter Baumann uses the Monty Hall game to demonstrate that probabilities cannot be meaningfully applied to individual games. Baumann draws from this first conclusion a second: in a single game, it is not necessarily rational to switch from the door that I have initially chosen to the door that Monty Hall did not open. After challenging Baumann's particular arguments for these conclusions, I argue that there is a deeper problem with his position: it rests on the false assumption that what justifies the switching strategy is its leading me to win a greater percentage of the time.In fact, what justifies the switching strategy is not any statistical result over the long run but rather the "causal structure" intrinsic to each individual game itself. Finally, I argue that an argument by Hilary Putnam will not help to save Baumann's second conclusion above.

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Section: Situation a Chooses B Chooses Monty Hall Opens Doormentioning

confidence: 88%

Baumann on the Monty Hall problem and single-case probabilities

Levy¹

2006

Synthese

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“…There is no repetition of the same event but a succession of many distinct events, which can be different illustrations of the same phenomenon. In Moser and Mulder ( 1994 ), Baumann ( 2005 ), Levy ( 2007 ), and Baumann ( 2008 ), MHP 2 is presented in an ambiguously termed way (de Finetti, 1977/1981 , p. 357). The variables are considered as trials of the same phenomenon without completely specifying them and their possible values.…”

Section: The Neglect Of the Bayesian Standpointmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…MHP is also used as an argument against the notion of single-case probabilities. Moser and Mulder ( 1994 ) argued that there existed two opposite rational solutions: “sticking” for a MHP proposed as a one-shot problem and “switching” for a MHP cast in a frequentist context (i.e., when imagining a sufficiently large number of games). Horgan ( 1995 ) opposed this view making explicit the correct solution for the one shot MHP and showing that switching is the only correct solution to both formulations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rationality, the Bayesian standpoint, and the Monty-Hall problem

Baratgin

2015

Front. Psychol.

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The Monty-Hall Problem (MHP) has been used to argue against a subjectivist view of Bayesianism in two ways. First, psychologists have used it to illustrate that people do not revise their degrees of belief in line with experimenters' application of Bayes' rule. Second, philosophers view MHP and its two-player extension (MHP2) as evidence that probabilities cannot be applied to single cases. Both arguments neglect the Bayesian standpoint, which requires that MHP2 (studied here) be described in different terms than usually applied and that the initial set of possibilities be stable (i.e., a focusing situation). This article corrects these errors and reasserts the Bayesian standpoint; namely, that the subjective probability of an event is always conditional on a belief reviser's specific current state of knowledge.

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“…This is a term already found in Moser and Mulder (1994) and Horgan (1995), so it deserves some attention. For Levy, "the causal structure of a Monty Hall game is the set of conditions that ultimately explains why sticking and switching have the probabilities that they do".…”

Section: In Defense Of Probabilistic Argumentsmentioning

confidence: 99%